Today I learned...

This is a thread for posting random things you didn't know before and found interesting enough to share, but not quite fascinating enough to warrant an entire thread to themselves. I couldn't find a similar thread already, so I thought I'd start one. I'm sure one that I missed will be pointed out though.

Fan death is an urban legend prevailing in South Korea in which an electric fan left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death of those inside. Fans sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on.

o_O

I love some of the pseudoscientific explanations that exist to try and justify this:

That an electric fan chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe.

That an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.

edit: it doesn't strictly have to be something you learned today, just something you never knew before and found interesting. It can be something obscure that most people also wouldn't know, or something that everybody knows and yet somehow you didn't.

Syrok wrote:
Cats are more likely to be injured and have more severe injuries when they fall from the 5-9th floor than when they fall higher or lower floors.

At least that's what they said on this week's This American Life podcast

I had heard that one before. Something to do with if they fall from lower then they don't have as fast an impact with the ground so it isn't as serious, if they fall from higher up they have plenty of time to right themselves and land on their feet.

I've heard that Korean fan thing before, I've got a friend living out there and some of the stories I hear are seriously weird.

Not really related, but he appeared on a cooking competition telly show with some other foreigners and they were supposed to have these flags representing their nationality in front of them. Except they lost the British flag, so gave him the only one which they had going spare, a Mexican one. My friend is six foot two and ginger.